ketogenic and high-carb meals for cyclic ketogenic diets

Let’s just get this dirty little secret of the low-carb diet world out of the way.

Nobody really likes eating a hamburger with a fork and a knife.

“Just order the burger without the bun,” they say. But when you order a burger in a restaurant without the bun, you either get it on a stack of cold lettuce, or just sitting by itself, neglected and undressed like so much chopped liver.Read more…

I am on a mission to prove the New York Times wrong. Oh, I agree that the majority of culture thinks pumpkin is a fruit to be beaten into submission with sugar and spice, or simply semantically magicked into your tastebuds without actually being an ingredient in that so-called “pumpkin spice latte”.

But despite the general opinion of the candy-crazed masses, the true flavor of fresh roasted pumpkin makes for a solid basis of a variety of savory dishes, like pumpkin curry, roast pumpkin soup, or — my new favorite — pumpkin shepherd’s pie.

I challenge you to not cut your pumpkin shepherd’s pie into a Pacman eating a power pellet.

People, there are literally a jillion ways to make a good pumpkin pie. I have been making ultra-low-carb paleo pumpkin pies for over a year now, so if anybody knows about low carb variations on pumpkin pie, it’s THIS girl.

However, I couldn’t decide which one I liked the best. They’re all pretty good, honestly. So the pumpkin pie and crust I’ve written up for you for this Thanksgiving is one that seems somewhat unique in the paleo and low carb worlds: FRIKKIN HUGE.

I’ve also made as many different crusts as I have made fillings, and I like them all for different reasons. The Low Carb Graham Cracker Crust I’ve decided to put on display here makes it feel like you’re eating a crispy cinnamon cookie with pumpkin custard on top.

The filling, meanwhile, couldn’t be more basic or more modifiable to your particular needs. Instead of telling you, “here’s the best pumpkin pie ever!” (and being wrong about it, because let’s face it, this isn’t the Iron Chef), I want to teach you how to make YOUR best pumpkin pie ever.

The ubiquity of fresh pumpkin here in California this time of year almost leads me to forget that the rest of the world wasn’t blessed with most wondrous gourd. Several of you commented on this website’s Facebook Page and on Twitter that not living in America meant you only had a small opportunity before pumpkin all disappeared from the shelves, this absurd culinary empire crumbling under the weight of its own unsustainability.

I have a couple of great pumpkin recipes queued up, but the rest of the pumpkin-web has been far more diligent in their efforts to document the great pumpkin than I have. My goal has been to produce 2 recipes per week, but it will probably take me another few weeks to get into a flow where I can write things up that quickly.

Meanwhile, I realized that there are WAY too many awesome things you can do with pumpkin for me to be fiddling while pumpkin-Rome burns. Here are some of the most novel and delicious ways you can contribute to the fall of the pumpkin-Rome empire.Read more…